11. Toronto Raptors (2012-13 finish: 10th)
After winning summer league MVP in Vegas, Jonas Valanciunas appears to be right on track to becoming one of the league's most promising young centers. The Raptors' season could hinge on his continued development. If he falters, they could shift into tank mode and look to deal Rudy Gay. If Valanciunas continues to blossom, a push for the playoffs could be in order.

Any way you slice it, this is a young team that's probably a little too talented for its own good, with the loaded 2014 draft class on the horizon.

tis a joke. detroit, bucks, and wiz aren't better than us. only the wiz MAY come out on top. toronto will make the playoffs this season unless we have a very long term injury to one of our starting lineup pieces, or we blow it up. you can quote me on that

plausible, but I think they have the nets and atlanta way to low. Atlanta is the same team basically with smith replaced by milsap and with williams back (but without zaza). Both Toronto and Atlanta are basically the same teams in fact and they won 10 more games last season, don't see any reasonable explanation why we should switch places this season ...

heh, if only the rankings were established on basis of popularity ...
and even then, I can't possibly see any connection between us trading Bargnani and atlanta losing a lot more games this upcoming season

tis a joke. detroit, bucks, and wiz aren't better than us. only the wiz MAY come out on top. toronto will make the playoffs this season unless we have a very long term injury to one of our starting lineup pieces, or we blow it up. you can quote me on that

Wizards > us

We're roughly equal with bucks and pistons, but I'm not banking on lowry having a healthy season (no sane person should), so we're probably going to be 10-12.

Reason No.1-Bargnani is gone. Bargnani is not option No. 1 on offense, and his help defence and non-existent rebounding is not our problem.

Reason No.2- After a horrid start, the team finished 21-20 in its last 41 games.

Reason No. 3-Teams ahead of the Raps last year have dropped off by trading off their best players or they allowed their best players leave via free agency.

#1 - Bargnani missed most of the season
#2 - the horrid start was because the schedule was horrible - we would have lost most of the games we lost anyway, at best there were 2 or 3 winnable games that we didn't win in that stretch.
#3 - if by teams ahead of the Raptors you mean boston, than sure. everybody else improved or stayed about the same. And some of teams behind us have improved massively.

Cleveland has several "ifs". Irving and Varejao are not the most durable players either. Bynum, Varejao, and Irving could all easily miss 15+ plus games. The Cavs have decent talent but it's very young, and I don't think their depth is good enough to get into the playoffs in that scenario.

If they play defense they will make the playoffs. Not having Bargnani, Calderon and Colangelo around increases the odds of gaining a full-fledged defensive identity by a wide margin. They get that identity and they will be able to slog through injuries and slumps. If they don't commit fully to gaining that identity, then they need to start swinging some deals in a hurry, and starting the tank.

If they play defense they will make the playoffs. Not having Bargnani, Calderon and Colangelo around increases the odds of gaining a full-fledged defensive identity by a wide margin. They get that identity and they will be able to slog through injuries and slumps. If they don't commit fully to gaining that identity, then they need to start swinging some deals in a hurry, and starting the tank.

Agree with this - if Casey can't recreate AND improve on his defensive focus in his first season, bringing this team to a top 10 defense, then there is no future with these players, considering the offensive inefficiency of many of the major pieces. If he can, then there is some hope for the future, mostly in improvement from Val, DD, and maybe Ross.

With a full training camp and being able to run his own stuff, the first 20 or 30 games should be enough to see what this team is capable of. By the end of Dec, we should know whether this is worth trying. And hopefully, if it is not blowing us away, Ujiri can get some value from these pieces.

Teams that might be ranked well but could turn into disasters: Nets and Knicks.

Over-rated: Detroit, Atlanta

Under-rated: Orlando Boston

Raptors could finish 11th, but they also could finish 5th.

You could say that about probably 5-7 teams in the east.

And Atlanta is not overrated. They're getting back probably their 3rd best player in Lou, and replaced Josh Smith will Millsap who are probably equal in terms of production. The rest of the roster is basically the same. Detroit might be a tad overrated but I think if you can hope JV can put up 14/8 next year, 12/10 might be fair for Drummond.